Aung San Suu Kyi: Myanmar’s New “Democratic Dictator”
Last edited Mon Nov 30, 2015, 01:19 PM - Edit history (1)
By Tony Cartalucci, Land Destroyer Report
Global Research
Tuesday, Nov 24, 2015
The Western media is portraying Myanmars recent elections as historic. One commentator described Myanmar as an exuberant nation prepared for a new era of democracy and political freedom. But one wonders what sort of democracy and political freedom can be borne of elections in which nearly a million voters were banned from casting their ballots and with the apparent victor already declaring herself above the law.
In reality, Suu Kyi and her NLDs supporters helped disenfranchise nearly a million Rohingya from voting even before the elections took place. Through widespread protests and threats of violence if their demands that the Rohingya remain stripped of their voting rights were not met, the ruling military-led government backed down from a scheme to grant the Rohingya minority long-sought after rights, including the ability to vote.
Full article: http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_72254.shtml
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016136465
Bumping this d/t the Myanmar election results .......
hoping they will finally be recognized and afforded legal protection. (edit: it looks like nothing has changed).
The Boat Of Starving Rohingya Refugees That No Country Will Take In
The emaciated faces of hundreds of refugees found adrift in Thai waters on Thursday spoke volumes about the scale of the humanitarian crisis unfolding in South Asia.
Reporters on Thursday found about 400 refugees from Myanmar's Muslim Rohingya minority crammed aboard a wooden fishing boat in the Andaman Sea, desperate for food and water.
The refugees said they had been at sea for almost three months and had fled persecution in their home country. They had hoped to reach Malaysia but were turned away by Malay authorities. Six days ago, smugglers abandoned their ship, and ten people had already perished onboard, refugees said.
Christophe Archambault, a photographer for Agence France Presse, captured the harrowing scenes onboard the ship, and the desperate scramble for supplies that were eventually dropped by the Thai military.
?2
Rohingya refugees are pictured on a boat off the southern Thai island of Koh Lipe in the Andaman Sea on May 14, 2015.
Aid groups say at least 6,000 refugees -- and perhaps many times that number -- have been drifting for days and months in the waters between Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia. They were abandoned with little food and water by human traffickers after a regional crackdown on smuggling networks. Most are Rohingya Muslims who are stateless in Myanmar and Bangladeshis trying to escape poverty.
?2
Rohingya migrants sit on a boat drifting in Thai waters off the southern island of Koh Lipe, May 14, 2015.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/14/boat-people-photos_n_7283178.html?ir=WorldPost
The Rohingya - Adrift on a Sea of Sorrows
By Eric Margolis
May 31, 2015 "Information Clearing House" - When is genocide not really genocide? When the victims are small, impoverished brown people no wants or cares about Burmas Rohingya.
Their plight has finally commanded some media attention because of the suffering of Rohingya boat people, 7,000 of whom continue to drift in the waters of the Andaman Sea without food, water or shelter from the intense sun. At least 2,500 lucky refugees are in camps in Indonesia.
Mass graves of Rohingya are being discovered in Thailand and Burma (Myanmar). Large numbers of Rohingya are fleeing for their lives from their homeland, Burma, while the world does nothing. Burma is believed to have some 800,000 Rohingya citizens.
This week, the Dalai Lama and other Nobel Peace Prize winners call on Burma and its much ballyhooed democratic leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, to halt persecution of the Rohingya. They did nothing.
Full article: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42008.htm
?itok=MwUi9KOJ
More than 100,000 Rohingyas tried to escape Burma on boats in the last year. (Photo/endgenocide.org)
Thailand wants no Rohyingas; Indonesia says only a few thousand on a temporary basis. Australia, which is not overly fond of non-whites, say no. Bangladesh cant even feed its own wretched people. So the poor Rohyingas are a persecuted people without a country, adrift on a sea of sorrows.
What of the Muslim world? What of that self-proclaimed Defender of the Faith. Saudi Arabia? The Saudis are just buying $109 billion worth of US arms which they cant use, but they dont have even a few pennies for their desperate co-religionists in the Andaman Sea. The Holy Koran enjoins Muslims to aid their brethren wherever they are persecuted this is the true essence of jihadism.
But the Saudis are too busy plotting against Iran, bombing Yemen, and supporting rebels in Iraq and Syria, or getting ready for their summer vacations in Spain and France, to think about fellow Muslims dying of thirst. Pakistan, which could help, has not, other than offering moral support. Neither has India, one of the worlds leading Muslim nations.
In the end, it may be up to the United States to rescue the Rohyinga, just as it rescued Bosnia and Kosovo. Thats fine with me. I dont want the US to be the worlds policeman; I want it to be the worlds rescuer, its SOS force, its liberator.
We should tell Burma to halt its genocide today, or face isolation and sanctions from the outside world.
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/05/30/rohingya-adrift-sea-sorrows
Mass graves of Rohingya Muslim migrants found in abandoned jungle camps in Malaysia
AGENCY Sunday 24 May 2015
"These graves are believed to be a part of human trafficking activities involving migrants," Home Minister Zahid Hamidi told reporters.
He did not say how many bodies have been recovered.
The Malaysian newspaper The Star has reported that as many as 100 bodies were found at one camp.
Similar camps and dozens of remains were recovered in jungle camps across the border in Thailand earlier this month, where Rohingya fleeing persecution in Myanmar had been held by traffickers until their families could pay for their freedom.
Full article: http://world.einnews.com/article/267110665/j47hG4-1JDja11R7
Thousands of Rohingya Migrants Remain Stranded at Sea
Published 16 May 2015
What we have now is a game of maritime Ping-Pong, says the IOM, as several countries have now denied entry to thousands of migrants.
Hundreds of Rohingya migrants fleeing violence in Myanmar remain stranded at sea on rickety fishing boats as neighboring countries refuse to allow them onto their territory, in what the UN has labelled maritime Ping-Pong with human life.
Thailand is the latest country to refuse entry to the migrants. After Thai officials offered a boat load of people food and water Friday, they then assisted the boat's departure farther out to sea.
The migrants have been at sea for weeks, and facing an increasingly desperate situation since they are believed to have very little food or water and are living in cramped and unsanitary conditions. Anywhere from 6,000 to 20,000 migrants are thought to be stranded on various boats, with hundreds piled into each vessel.
A wooden, green and red fishing boat carrying several hundred people was spotted Thursday adrift between Thailand and Malaysia.
Full article: http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Thousands-of-Rohingya-Migrants-Remain-Stranded-at-Sea-20150516-0011.html
"The Rohingya people - often described as one of the most persecuted people on earth"
Rohingya and the Burmese Generals
How to Forge a Democracy and Get Away with It
by Ramzy Baroud / November 18th, 2015
The sad fact is that much of the reporting on the Burmese elections stoked false hope that a democracy has finally prevailed in that country, and either brushed over or completely ignored the plight of the Rohingya altogether.
Indeed, a whole new narrative is being conveniently drafted, written jointly by the Burmese army, nationalist parties, Aung San Suu Kyis NLD, western investors and anyone else who stands to benefit from the treasures of one of the worlds worst human rights violators.
http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/11/rohingya-and-the-burmese-generals/#more-60522
Well, so much for hoping for change with the recent election.
Can democracy and genocide co-exist in Burma?
By Murtaza Shaikh
Source: open democracy
November 30, 2015
However, there is a story behind the headlines and jubilation, to a large extent sidelined and omitted, perhaps because it inconveniently complicates and even undermines the simplistic narrative of democratic triumph over dictatorship, of absolute good overcoming absolute evil. That barely visible story, rather than a minor detail, demands our full attention, especially if the purpose behind the electoral exercise was a future democratic Burma, where human rights and its diverse ethnic and religious plurality is accommodated, respected and reflected politically.
And it is this: the Rohingya Muslim minority numbering around 1 million were denied the right to vote or stand for office, following a recent census, which excluded all Rohingya. Couple this with recent in-depth reports from Queen Mary University and Fortify Rights and the Yale Law School finding that the process of genocide is under way against the Rohingya. The QMU report concludes
the Rohingya have suffered the first four of the six stages of genocide. They have been, and continue to be, stigmatized, dehumanised and discriminated against. They have been harassed, terrorized and slaughtered. They have been isolated and segregated into detention camps and securitised villages and ghettos. They have been systematically weakened through hunger, illness, denial of civil rights and loss of livelihood. This puts them at serious risk of stage five which is mass annihilation.
The report is endorsed by Tomás Ojea Quintana, former Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar (2008-14). Earlier in 2013, a Human Rights Watch Report titled: All You Can Do is Pray had concluded, with the help of detailed satellite imagery, the treatment of Rohingya met the legal definition of ethnic cleansing.
Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/can-democracy-and-genocide-co-exist-in-burma/
marble falls
(57,112 posts)polly7
(20,582 posts)even the rights as citizens and being found buried in mass graves or drowned trying to flee?
marble falls
(57,112 posts)than twenty years while the military shot thousands down in the streets?
polly7
(20,582 posts)Her being under house arrest has nothing to do with ignoring the plight of these people and not granting them rights as citizens, as well as turning a blind eye to the atrocities against them.
Rohingyas - one of the most persecuted of minorities in the world.
marble falls
(57,112 posts)polly7
(20,582 posts)MisterP
(23,730 posts)and gets let off the hook internationally with the elected regime taking all the brunt; the Army gets to set the terms for its erstwhile opposition and keep the real power (ditto Thailand or the Philippines)
polly7
(20,582 posts)muriel_volestrangler
(101,322 posts)who thinks that the West funds ISIS. Nothing he writes nca be taken seriously.
polly7
(20,582 posts)I'll decide what I take seriously, but thanks.
The west has funded ISIS, that's nothing many of us haven't known for a long time, indirectly of course, and through it's allies who we sell the weapons to, etc. Just like we funded many, many other groups who we've used directly to fight govt's we haven't approved of, as in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/how-the-west-bankrolls-isis-millions-from-governments-and-ngos-funding-radical-islamic-terror-group-30438217.html
The United States spent years sabotaging UN attempts at peace in Syria.
The United States dismissed out of hand a Russian peace proposal for Syria in 2012.
It's so heartwarming to see your empathy for the Rohingya people. Is there anything in any of this thread regarding them and their lack of rights of citizens and their suffering - even with the election you're disagreeing with? Or is it just a chance to wag your finger and censor what I post? Wikipedia has them as the most persecuted people on earth, maybe you'd better go correct that information.
I don't believe I'll place much stock in anything you write, or take it seriously.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,322 posts)He's also suggesting the Paris terror attacks were a false flag operation. In another far right publication he writes regularly for: http://www.libertyroundtable.com/2015/11/15/attack-in-france-state-sponsored-terror-but-which-state/
I've posted about the Rohingya people here for a couple of years now. I don't need lessons from the far right about them.
polly7
(20,582 posts)Last edited Mon Nov 30, 2015, 02:16 PM - Edit history (1)
And ........ I don't take orders.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,322 posts)polly7
(20,582 posts)Burmas Million-Strong Rohingya Population Faces Final Stages of Genocide, Says Report
ISCI uses noted genocide expert Daniel Feiersteins framework of the six stages of genocide, outlined in his 2014 book Genocide as Social Practice, as a lens through which to view Burma. Through interviews with stakeholders on both sides of what it describes as ethnic cleansing, as well as media reports and leaked government documents, the report enumerates how the Rohingya have undergone the first four stages stigmatization and dehumanization; harassment, violence and terror; isolation and segregation; systematic weakening and are on the verge of mass annihilation. The sixth stage, which involves the removal of the victim group from collective history, is already under way in many respects, the report says.
A lot of the food rations sent by international aid organizations never make it to the Rohingya camps, and denial of access to adequate health care have turned them into hotbeds for malnutrition and disease. As a result of the apartheid-like conditions, the inhabitants of these camps are also largely prevented from receiving an education and earning any sort of livelihood.
The abuses that the Rohingya are experiencing are at a level and scale that we have not seen elsewhere in Southeast Asia, Matthew Smith, the founder and executive director of Bangkok-based nonprofit Fortify Rights, tells TIME. The human-rights organization has been documenting abuses in Burma, and Smith echoes the assertion that there is a strong reason to believe state-enabled ethnic cleansing is taking place in the country.
The Rohingya dont have to be annihilated for someone to be held responsible for the crime of genocide, he says. They [Burmese authorities] are creating conditions of life for over a million people that are designed to be destructive.
No political party has countered the Islamophobic national narrative, with even the liberal National League for Democracy (NLD) of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi going to the polls without a single Muslim candidate, and the Rohingyas deplorable situation will likely endure no matter the elections result.
There will be no change for the Rohingya, says Shwe Maung, a Rohingya lawmaker from northern Rakhine state who has been barred from re-election. The government is totally denying our community, totally denying our ethnicity, he tells TIME. Whatever is happening is with the ultimate objective of genocide or cleansing, which is to finish these people and to drive them out.
http://time.com/4089276/burma-rohingya-genocide-report-documentary/
U Win Htein, a spokesman and leading figure in Suu Kyis National League for Democracy (NLD), said the Rohingya Muslims' plight was not top of the agenda for his party, which won nearly 80 per cent of the seats available in the poll.
We have other priorities, he said. Peace, the peaceful transition of power, economic development and constitutional reform.
He also echoed the current military-backed governments rhetoric about the Rohingya, suggesting they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
The latest intervention, however, suggested otherwise.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/asia/burma/12006208/Aung-San-Suu-Kyi-aide-Rohingya-are-not-our-priority.html
Can democracy and genocide co-exist in Burma?
By Murtaza Shaikh
Source: open democracy
November 30, 2015
However, there is a story behind the headlines and jubilation, to a large extent sidelined and omitted, perhaps because it inconveniently complicates and even undermines the simplistic narrative of democratic triumph over dictatorship, of absolute good overcoming absolute evil. That barely visible story, rather than a minor detail, demands our full attention, especially if the purpose behind the electoral exercise was a future democratic Burma, where human rights and its diverse ethnic and religious plurality is accommodated, respected and reflected politically.
And it is this: the Rohingya Muslim minority numbering around 1 million were denied the right to vote or stand for office, following a recent census, which excluded all Rohingya. Couple this with recent in-depth reports from Queen Mary University and Fortify Rights and the Yale Law School finding that the process of genocide is under way against the Rohingya. The QMU report concludes
the Rohingya have suffered the first four of the six stages of genocide. They have been, and continue to be, stigmatized, dehumanised and discriminated against. They have been harassed, terrorized and slaughtered. They have been isolated and segregated into detention camps and securitised villages and ghettos. They have been systematically weakened through hunger, illness, denial of civil rights and loss of livelihood. This puts them at serious risk of stage five which is mass annihilation.
The report is endorsed by Tomás Ojea Quintana, former Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar (2008-14). Earlier in 2013, a Human Rights Watch Report titled: All You Can Do is Pray had concluded, with the help of detailed satellite imagery, the treatment of Rohingya met the legal definition of ethnic cleansing.
Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/can-democracy-and-genocide-co-exist-in-burma/